Detesting The Dating Ritual
by KathrynElaineDonahue
Summary: Snape is forced to go on a date. Laughable, right? Well, not to him.
**A/N: Hi! I'm back at it again with the QLFC but I'm Beater #2 for the Wimbourne Wasps. This round, the very first one, is about Deatheaters' and what they do in their everyday lives…you know, when they're not around each other. My Deatheater has to go on a date and I chose for Severus Snape to go on a date. Prompts are listed below!**

 **Prompts used** :  
 **#6: (word) inappropriate  
#14: (word) clock**

 **Detesting The Dating Ritual**

 _Word Count: 1,141_

Snape had never looked or felt more out of place than he did in that exact moment. The swanky restaurant waiters clashed horribly with his black robes. He kept glancing, as casually as he could, at the over-sized clock on the wall. He had realized that he was early for the date by thirty minutes, but it wasn't on purpose.

He wasn't nervous, but he did want to hurry up and get it over with. The only reason that he had even agreed to come to this date was to settle a debt between he and Albus Dumbledore. Snape had made the mistake of mentioning, ever so quietly, that he had never been on a date. Naturally, in order for Snape to get the grant for his potions lab he had to endure a form of torture that he wasn't familiar with. Now he sat in the kind of restaurant that he would ordinarily have never glanced at. It was a restaurant full of people that stared at you for not having a napkin in your lap. It was a restaurant that considered people like Snape to be an inappropriate addition to an audience that preferred crisp linen dining cloths and ate off china worth more than their brooms.

Nonetheless, he was there and thoroughly irritated by the fact that he was early and she was not. He wasn't ignorant of the questioning glances and harsh whispers that he was receiving from neighboring tables. In fact, he felt like he was keeping his composure fairly well. More eyes had turned to look in his direction, and he couldn't hold it any longer. He was going to say something, and they weren't going to like it. The moment he stood up and turned around he realized what they all had been staring at.

She had come around the table from behind him. Her blonde, wavy locks fell gently over one of her shoulders. Her smile, whiter than any Patronus he'd ever seen, brightened her striking emerald orbs. Her eyes were curious about the man standing before her, and she wondered if he was the person that she had been sent here to meet.

"Are you Severus Snape?" she questioned, smiling.

Her voice was melodic and seemed to hypnotize him, but only for a few seconds. He nodded once and watched her hand extend towards him after she had smoothed down her ruby dress, begging to be taken in his. He just stared at it like he didn't know what exactly it was that he was supposed to do with it. She retracted her hand and rubbed her wrist nervously, bearing the same smile that she had shown him from the start.

"I'm Nadia Baron, a friend of Albus," she informed, pulling out her own chair and sitting down.

He was still standing, slightly flustered by the pretty blonde that sat herself at his table, but he quickly got over his moment of stage fright and settled down with her. She placed the napkin in her lap while his still remained on the table, and he studied her as she ordered a glass of Diagon's finest.

"So, tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living?" Nadia wondered, taking a large sip from her goblet.

"I'm the Potions professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he answered, looking around the room.

He wanted to look at anyone other than her in that particular moment. He glanced at the clock and realized it had only been a minute since he met her. This night was going to be an excruciatingly long one.

"Ah, so you must know a lot of concoctions," she joked, laughing lightly.

He didn't laugh. He never laughed. He just glared at her with his nose turned up. She started to notice and took another long, drawn out sip of her drink as she laughed nervously. She began to tap her fingers on the table impatiently as she searched her brain for things to ask or ways she could escape the uncomfortable silence.

"When Albus told me that you had never been on a date before, I had secretly hoped that he wasn't telling the truth," she said, finishing off her goblet.

"Is it that obvious?" he questioned, finally looking at her.

"It's painfully obvious, but I guess this isn't going to work out quite like Albus had hoped," Nadia said, looking at her nail-beds.

He agreed with her, but when Nadia looked up at him, the way her eyes glistened under the candlelight reminded him of Lily. Her soft smile, full of sympathy, reminded him of the kindness that Lily always gave him.

"I'm just not familiar with the entire dating etiquette. I don't come to places like this, I don't talk to anyone about anything and I'm still not over my first true love," he said that last part as quietly as he could.

He realized that he had just shown a moment of weakness. He hoped that she hadn't heard him but she had.

"I know how you feel… when my husband died last year I didn't know what I was going to do," she confessed, ordering another glass.

"You're a widow?" he asked, curious despite himself.

"Sadly, it's true. It gets easier over time, but I'm starting to think I rushed into this date to get my head clear. The truth is that I'm picturing his head over yours right now," she smiled dreamily.

"Well…" he started but he couldn't finish.

There was nothing he could have said to make the tension between them die down. He wished that he had shown foresight and brewed something that might be useful in dispelling the excruciating atmosphere.

"Do you think you could tell me about her?" Nadia questioned.

"About who?"

"Your first true love," she answered simply.

He didn't know if he could do it. He hadn't talked about her to anyone since she died and maybe not even then. However, this was to a complete stranger, and it wasn't as though he had to use real names. He could lie to her, and she wouldn't even know, but something about that felt odd. He couldn't make her up. There was no such thing as making Lily something she wasn't.

"It could be a long conversation."

"Then the least we could do is have dinner on Albus, right?" she asked, hoping that he would open up a little bit.

"I guess I don't see the harm in that," he said quickly.

Several glasses and a dinner later, they knew everything they needed to know about each other. That was enough for them. There was no second date, there wasn't a phone call or letter days later, and there wasn't a future. They had what they needed that night, and that was all it would ever be.


End file.
